Laura Bates, a feminist writer and activist hailing from London, observed in her early twenties while working as a nanny in the UK that the young girls she looked after were preoccupied with their bodies because of marketing influences. In 2012, Bates established The Everyday Sexism Project, a platform designed to document and challenge sexism, misogyny, and gender-based violence on a global scale by pointing out subtle occurrences such as invisible labor, referring to women as girls, and commenting on their clothing in professional environments. This initiative was transformed into a book in 2014.
Since then, the online abuse of women has surged, including Bates’ personal encounters with deepfake pornography, prompting her to author her latest book, “The New Age of Sexism: How AI and Emerging Technologies Are Reinventing Misogyny,” released on September 9 by Sourcebooks.
Bates tells WIRED that while gender-based violence is frequently perpetrated by individuals known to the victims, the growing accessibility of artificial intelligence is swiftly reducing the barriers for this type of abuse. She clarifies that now anyone with internet access can produce realistic abusive, pornographic images of any woman or girl using fully clothed photographs obtained from the internet.
Through her study, which included discussions with tech developers and women impacted by AI and deepfake technology, as well as utilizing the chatbots and sexbots she critiques, Bates investigates in “The New Age of Sexism” how AI could represent a new frontier in the oppression of women if not adequately regulated.
Bates foresees skepticism, recognizing that some might perceive her as an alarmist feminist, but she points out that high-ranking men at major tech firms share her worries. She references Jan Leike, who departed OpenAI last year due to apprehensions about the company’s focus on flashy products over safety, as a case in point. Bates underscores that this caution is voiced by individuals deeply entrenched in these firms, raising the question of whether society is prepared to heed their warnings.
She also elaborates with WIRED on how AI companions and virtual assistants could instill misogyny in children, the environmental repercussions of AI affecting women first, and how novel technologies swiftly regress into the biases of their creators and users.
In a conversation with WIRED, Bates examines how new technological advancements often quickly regress into misogyny. She clarifies that this trend is observable with the internet, social media, and online pornography, where technology frequently becomes a tool for harassing, abusing, and controlling women. Bates contends that technology mirrors the prejudices of its creators and the historical misogyny of society, giving them renewed life and avenues for abuse. She voices concern that AI, especially generative AI, not only reproduces existing forms of abuse but exacerbates them, providing new threats and control tactics for abusers.
